'Birtherism' and the US 'News' Media

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



'Birtherism' and the US 'News' Media

By Danny Schechter
May 2, 2011


Editor’s Note: After releasing his long-form birth certificate last week, President Barack Obama made fun of the “birther” issue during his remarks to the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night – even showing a clip from the Disney movie, “The Lion King,” as a supposed “video of my birth.”

Obama then pointedly informed Fox News attendees that the video was meant as a joke and that they could check with Disney if they wanted to see "the long-form" version. However, as Danny Schechter notes in this guest essay, there is a serious side to what the “birther” nonsense says about today's U.S. "news" media:


In the aftermath of the resolution of the Great Birther bash-up, even as President Obama tried to lay the issue to rest by producing the document that showed, proved, verified, documented, and validated his birth in one of the great states of our disunion, it was said that its release would only fuel more debate and convince no one.

In other words, in the end, this long debated fact didn’t matter.

Facts no longer seem to matter on other issues, too, as articulated in the now infamous memo issued by the office of retiring Sen. Jon Kyl when confronted with evidence that he misspoke on the matter of how much money Planned Parenthood spent on abortions — he claimed 90 percent, the truth was but 3 percent, issued an advisory that said, “The statement was not meant to be factual.”

Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” had a lot of fun with that, but one thing that’s not funny is that even when media coverage discredits or exposes some canard, public opinion is not necessarily impacted. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/050211a.html

[rfranklin]

1. This is a well-documented psychological phenomenon....

of cognitive dissonance. When confronted with facts that conflict with deep-seated beliefs, people will discount and dismiss the facts and cling even more closely to their beliefs.

[RZM]

2. One idiotic conspiracy theory down, but 5 million more to go

One good thing that I wished could have come out of the birther nonsense (also the 'Obama is a Muslim' bullshit) had to do with the fact that conspiracy theories surrounding our president did get a fair amount of national play and discussion. I wish that opportunity could have been used to publicly and forcefully condemn other bullshit conspiracy theories that lots of people believe. I wish our press (and regular people) would have used this opportunity to more strongly call out the anti-Vaxxers, MIHOPers and people who believe that the US government/intelligence services created the crack and AIDS epidemics. And that's just a start.

But the OP is certainly spot on. For those who love conspiracies, facts don't matter (actually, I think they are often used as evidence of the 'cover up').

[Uncle Joe]

3. A lot of it has to do with repetition, they spread a lie or slander over

a prolonged period of time, and if they ever retract, it might be mentioned once or twice and then buried.

I believe the truth must be mentioned repetitively and aggressively holding the lie mongers to account, to be effective.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.